Soyuz MS-26 Spacecraft’s Parachute Landing Ends 220 Days In Space

NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin And Ivan Vagner are safely back on terra firma after 220 days in space aboard the International Space Station where Pettit conducted numerous research tasks associated with in-orbit 3-D metal printing, water sanitation technologies, plant growth, and fire behavior in microgravity.

Oh, and Pettit also celebrated his 70th birthday upon landing in Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. During the mission, officially designated Expedition 71 and 72, Pettit and crewmates completed 3,520 orbits of Earth, traveling about 93.3 million miles, just about the same distance as the Earth is from the Sun.

This was Pettit’s fourth spaceflight, where he served as the flight engineer on this mission. He has logged a total 590 days in orbit during his career. Ovchinin also completed his fourth flight for a total of 595 days, and this was Vagner’s second spaceflight for a totalof 416 days in space.

Right now, NASA is completing its routine post-landing medical checks of the crew. The crew will then return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. There, Pettit will fly aboard a NASA flight to its Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Immediate news from the landing area is that Pettit is doing well and is within the range of results expected following a mission and return to Earth.

During his time aboard the station, Pettit also demonstrated his creative side by using his camera to conduct “science of opportunity” by combining art, science, and microgravity. One of his composite images showed what happens when he used charged water droplets and a knitting needle made of Teflon to demonstrate something like the interaction of charged particles from the sun and the Earth’s atmosphere similar to the aurora or Northern Lights.

FMI:  www.nasa.gov/